Learn Lua in an Hour

This video tutorial covers all the essentials of the Lua programming language in just under an hour.

I'm trying something experimental with this video, which is to post the entire script on github here:

I'd like for this video to be world-editable, a bit like a wikipedia page. If you have suggestions for the script (that don't make it longer), please do the usual git thing and send me a pull request.

Here are some ideas for future videos I might make. Please comment if you have any requests for these topics, or anything else programming-related!

* Intro to OpenGL
* Intro to the Love game engine
* Linear algebra for OpenGL
* Bash tutorial
* Colorspaces tutorial

Thanks!

[RyanFaeScotland]

01:50 - Installing Lua and Documentation
03:12 - The Interpreter (Getting Started)
04:20 - Variable Types
06:46 - Operators
08:30 - Assignments
09:02 - Tables
11:28 - print()
11:47 - Functions and Closures
14:32 - Chunks
16:18 - Comments
17:05 - Loops
19:36 - pairs and ipairs (Iterators)
21:05 - If, Else, Elseif
21:47 - io.read and io.write
23:45 - Require and Modules
26:36 - Error Handling
29:20 - File Operations
30:18 - The Math Module
31:09 - The String Module
32:10 - Metatables (Object Orientating)
35:10 - Tables as Classes (Object Orientating)
42:30 - Worked Example

[ianlux]

0:00 I'm gonna make a video game!
7:30 Well... I've heard the salt mine needs new workers...

[AndrewDiMola]

omg - I just read your post on /r/lua from like 4 years ago, and then somehow also ran into you here. Thanks for all the effort you put into teaching!

[semperfidelis]

I'm 27 seconds in, and I just like the way you talk. Such a comforting and polite voice, I think I won't have any issue listening to you for an hour. And yes I'm here to learn lua.

[Seby]

ok i'm gonna flex my lua power





Print("Hello world")

[rishabh.bhargava]

Hey Tyler, this was a great video. As a beginner to Lua, I was with you the entire time till the fun example of the Grapher began, but then keeping track of the code and the problem together became too much. Hopefully going through the script again should do the trick. Thanks a lot for a brilliant video again!

[TheCoyneWedding]

great video, love the fast pace. as an experienced software engineer new to lua it was perfect to get up to speed quickly.

[PixelOutlaw]

Good video. I appreciate the pace of the whole thing.
As some others have said, please use a lower resolution video next time or increase the font size in your REPL.

[dietrying]

I don't know about the other comments, but I thought this was a perfect way of explaining a new language to a programmer familiar with other languages. I myself have experience with others, and it hit on basically all of the areas I had questions of. Standard math, assigning variables, how it evaluates strings/numbers, OOP, includes/requires, control flows. I feel ready and prepared to get started with lua and just stack overflow any of the rest. Thanks so much for this tut. I honestly wish I found more videos who approached learning and explaining a new language in this way for other programming languages.

[deepblue]

Came in optimistic, left confused 5 mins later...

[fleetservice]

Thanks. That was a nicely structured quick introduction to the language, - and only really 40 minutes too, so ideal for someone as impatient as myself! I've definitely got more of a feeling for the way lua works now.

Bigger text would have been nice, though.

[Malachichi]

How would I set a certain animation to characters in Gmod? I just can't figure it out.

[Monsoon]

I cant see the strings being typed. font is too small, sorry

[BlauStilton]

Not exactly a tutorial open to beginners, I'll move on. If you have any recommendation for a tutorial for beginners I'd love the recommendation!

[ArkanaGG]

Theres not much videos of people covering the basics of lua, now that i know these basics, i can progress faster. Thank you

[boteman]

Excellent bootstrap to get started with Lua. Articulate, thoughtful, knowledgeable and there's always the pause button when I need to digest the rapid-fire information coming at me :-)

THANKS!!

[trevorgustavgreen]

Watching this made more sense than reading the official documentation, really helped me. Thanks for making this video :)

[tron]

I like the way you keep it straight and simple, its just programming tutorial nothing else irrelevant, im looking forward to more of ur tutorials

[planetmuman]

Excellent tutorial for those who know some other scripting languages. I am a Sr Software Engineer looking at Lua for scripting solution in embedded software.

[michaelgentles]

I don't like to leave negative comments, so I will only make suggestions. Please consider zooming the text in a bit, to make it easier to read in a video. Also, please consider starting with basics rather than jumping right into complex concepts. I could not complete this tutorial.